Sirat

In Sirat, a father searches for his missing adult daughter in the Moroccan desert, along with his young son and their dog. Along the way, they make friends with people lesser films would have treated with far less empathy and a whole lot more condescension. This view toward understanding and tolerance is just one of many virtues in this tough, unforgiving yet remarkable and powerful film. As filmed by director and co-writer Oliver Laxe, this is part travelogue and all metaphor.

Courtesy Neon

Here, the sounds, including the rave music that forms the lifeblood of the travelers as well as much of their purpose, and the movements create a tableau on which Laxe spins a tale of searching, yearning and emptiness. There is a pulse, through those aural rhythms, and it matches, often accentuating, the images on display. There are moments here as tense as any thriller, and the desert has rarely looked as simultaneously inviting or intimidating as it does in this feature.

There are elements of films such as Wages of Fear, The Great Chase and Mad Max, but not enough to call any one of these works a parent. Set, as it is, in a near-future soon-to-be-apocalypse, the world in which the story takes place is all too similar to our own, except certain events are moving faster toward their conclusion. Character, place, time, space, movement and desire, as well as destiny, all dance toward their seemingly inevitable outcome. Add in a very tiny dash of Priscillia, Queen of the Desert, and one has an idea of what this film is like.

Courtesy Neon

There are times a viewer may think they are watching a Jodorowsky, particularly in the sense that Laxe is clearly influenced by the visual techniques of that artist. As with Jodorowsky, the characters are far from unimportant, because they play a parallel importance to the themes and visual storytelling taking place. In a film about the end of civilization and the ways we destroy every vestige of love and community, it is vital to have tremendously sympathetic and relatable characters. This film achieves that.

If it was not for this level of bonding between audience and character, the events of the film would simply be grim, instead of both punishing and exhilarating. Because Laxe makes the viewer invest in these people and the world they inhabit, one is able to endure the hardships onscreen. In a sense, this also works like a Jodorowsky in the way the characters interact with the environment. Few, if any of his characters, were ever as sympathetic, or empathetic, as who we meet during this trek.

What we have, instead, is a community. We might want discovery and healing, but this is not the place for such things. The desert is a cruel, uninviting and overwhelming place. It is unkind to visitors and those seeking answers. It is vast and unknowable, like the sky above and as infinite in possibility as the grains of sand beneath our characters feet and wheels. If there is an ultimate theme, here, it is entropy.

Courtesy Neon

This is a film in which every element is precisely calculated, in ways which feel rougher, and more spontaneous than one would assume. Each element, the editing, cinematography, direction, acting, script and music, combine to create a sense of dread, loss and wonder that have not often been seen on film in as effective a manner. It is a movie that needs to be gone into for viewers as cold as possible, so that one can process what happens as it happens. Knowing the premise should be enough. To truly know more would ruin that aspect. Let it be enough to know you should not miss it.

Sirat opens in select theaters on Friday, February 6th.